Two private sector partners—the managed health care insurers Amerigroup NJ and Horizon New Jersey Health—and the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services funded the Childhood Obesity Intervention Task Force’s very first initiative, a community health resource guide that was printed and distributed via Garfield’s schools and city agencies.

Reveille and Burke hoped task force members could work together to create a pilot program to increase physical activity and promote healthier eating for kids in Garfield. They hoped, too, that Garfield could identify some best practices to help fight childhood obesity that might even be shared with other communities in New Jersey. “We knew the problem,” said Reveille, “what we needed was to create interventions.”

Reveille quickly understood that the first thing to do was to name the task force’s initiative something that might appeal to and engage all residents of Garfield. “We are a very diverse community and everyone needs to see a piece of themselves in our program,” said Reveille.

So the task force named the initiative “Fitness, Unity, Nutrition”, or FUN. The word “unity” is important, said Reveille, because task force members aim to bring the whole community together to create healthier lifestyle habits.